Friday, 26 August 2011

The bug park

Did you know, centipedes wash themselves? Or that the Northern Violet Ground Beetle will chew a hole in your skin?

We do. Because today we joined Kate and our lovely local home ed group, led by the Archbishop of Rushmere* for all talk bug-related.

This fantastic jaunt was organised by a family of unbounded insect enthusiasts. I first met them over a jar of crickets.

Thanks to them, and The Bish, we learn how Scottish wood ants spray poison from their bums. They do! Each ant holds its bum with its little hairy fingers and directs its spray at the enemy! Like a hose! **

See what you can learn out of doors?

Well of course, if you're thinking about it, I want to give you confidence that you can do education out of school, too. Lots of little kids don't want to go in the first place, and lots of parents worry they won't learn anything if they don't go. So I'll tell you how learning like this is as straightforward as it can be.

Without school, it can go something like this.

Kate - organiser of her creature-crazy family including pet spiders, ladybirds, crickets, slugs, and a guinea pig who won't climb ladders - calls the local entomology group (look yours up on the web***) and she asks for someone who can talk bugs to kids.

The Bish turns up. He says, Insects are our friends. I'll do it for the love of a lacewing.

Kate contacts the ranger of a local country park and hires one of their woodland meeting rooms. Then she advertises the date, cost, details, on the secret email lists we home educators run up and down the country. (The ones that are under surveillance by MI6 and the Saudi Secret Service.****)

That's it.

We parents and kids all turn up, pay three quid each for the room and The Bish's petrol, then we enjoy a fantastic few hours crashing about fields with big nets, having our ankles nibbled, saying ooh and ahh at the seven-spot ladybirds, and listening to a brilliant talk with magnified bugs and an errant cricket.

Over to The Bish. I couldn't have made him up. He is BRILLIANT. I scribbled down his best bits while he put his bezzy mates (and possibly his girlfriend) on a magnifying projector.

(But because this is an educational blog, I won't say which bug he's talking about. Match it from this list: bush cricket, field grasshopper, Northern violet ground beetle, lacewing, centipede, harvest man, and white cross spider.)

'Turn her over! You can see from above she's got rather lovely eyes, a cute little beaky nose, and her ovipositor. Another very exciting thing about her, she keeps her ears in her elbows! You can speak to this little lady from anywhere and she might stick out her arms to hear you.

Now here's a madam with a very hairy chest and very shiny eyes. If madam will sit still for a second, you might just see she has a bush between her legs (I'm not making this up). She covers her eggs with froth. Oh dear, she's wandered off. She's not being as helpful as she might be.

Oooh, now here's a lady with big jaws and small eyes. She eats by chewing a hole in your skin, liquefies the flesh with her digestive juices, then sucks out dinner. Look, I can demonstrate. I'll just put her on my thumb. (I blacked out for five minutes and may have missed something.)

This one's a boy! Come on, let's see you! Oh dear. I apologise for the lost leg. Never mind. He'll be fine with seven. I wish he'd start waving to you so that you'll know I haven't done anything really awful to him. He must be sulking. Oh. Has anyone got any more of those?

Now, what have we here? Aha! These are exciting little fellows. If you go out at dusk you might see them gathering. Oh look! This one's having a wash. That's really rather wonderful. They have to live in damp conditions because they are very delicate. They keep very moist and clean. Go out tonight and see if you can find some.

My favourite! Isn't she a delight? She's worth getting to know. She is so friendly and has such beautiful golden eyes. (The grasshopper started crawling about my ankles at this point. I became distracted and took no more notes of eulogy.)

If you've never looked into the eyes of this tiny fellow it's quite an experience. They're scavengers. They'll queue up around any creature that's feeling a little queasy, and they'll wait. (I check my immediate environment.) They have the most delicate feeding parts of any animal I know. They eat daintily, as if they're using chopsticks! (He's obviously not seen us having a go with those.) One note of caution. Hold them by five legs. If you hold them by one or two legs, they let those legs drop off.

Well, to wrap up. There are 30,000 types of wildlife in Britain. 22,000 are insects. 2,500 types of insects you'll find in Rushmere country park. You can be here every day of the year and find a new insect. Each has its own lifestyle, its own way of living, eating, making babies. There are some 21,000 species we know very little about. If you find a new insect, one that you don't know about, remember that even the experts might not know much about it either.

They are amazingly fascinating, and incredible diverse. And I, for one, am incredibly grateful we share the earth with them.'*****

* Not his real name. He deserves it for resembling the real Archbishop of Canterbury and being a softly-spoken evangelist for bugs.** I wish I could do that to my arch enemy, the bloke at number 32.*** Royal Entomological Society.**** Home ed paranoia. You'll need to get used to that.***** See why I called him The Bish?

I had a big black spider in my bathroom when I changed into my pajamas. I didn't kill him; I never do. I figure he will do something useful here or find his way outside again. As long as he doesn't crawl on me I'm okay with him.

The bishop seems like an interesting man to have over for a cup of coffee. I wonder how many of the same insects we share between our two countries?

there are some real monsters in hk, people. great tree spiders, maybugs, cockroaches and ants that talk. i wish i could take the bish along with us, then i could catch the joy of the moment as they scuttle across the kitchen floor at midnight.

Other stuff

We have educated triplet girls to age 16 by never sending them to school.

At age 16, one daughter is now at 6th form for A levels, so you can find out about culture clash.

The other two daughters are taking a year to think what they want to do next, because we run at our own pace.If you are looking for primary, try the archives under 2011 or 2012. Ideas? Try Seven days with elephants.

Secondary home ed? Try 2012 or 2014 through to 2016.

Exams made life boring for us all and the blog stopped for long periods so the home educated could concentrate on enjoying some teens.

From 2016, expect the blog to start concentrating on me, me, me, because it's my turn.

Home ed style: Secular, philosophical, eclectic, autonomous.

Exams: own choice IGCSE courses. The HE-exams group is a must-join. I gave formal lessons in nothing.

where is everybody?

This blog is a record of a home educationwrit for parents thinking about home edwrit for the LA who need an education about home edwrit for Grit's friends and relations who drop in once a yearand writ for Grit's sane and lovely mind.

The internal DCSF Consultation Report, made public 23 January. (pdf)In Annex A, 94% of respondents disagreed that the local authority should have the power to interview a home educated child alone.When this comes out Ed Balls' mouth in the Second Reading Debate, 94% against turns to:'The vast majority of parents would be happy to let that happen'(Hansard 11.01.10, Children, Schools and Families Bill, col 437.)

Love it or loathe it? The petition still broke a record.Press release in the Mirror, Channel4 news, the Guardian.

'Even if you don't currently see yourself home educating, you never know what the future might hold, and if a time comes when you find yourself needing to pull your child out of school, I hope the option is still available to you, and you don't regret thinking *it's nothing to do with me*.'

Read the Right to Reply'Home educators are renowned for their strong opinions and independent spirit. They come from all faiths and none. They have as many approaches to education as there are children. They rarely agree on anything. And yet they are remarkably united in their opposition to these proposals. There is great concern that their way of life will be legislated out of existence.'--Response to the Badman Review of Elective Home Education in England and reaction to the Select Committee hearing.

The problem with home educators is that they are impossible to define. The only things that links them is respect for their children. And did the state just stagger foolishly across that line?Are we sandal wearing tree huggers who let our kids run wild or control mad Jesus freaks who don't want them learning about sex and evolution? Are we hot housing or leaving them to watch TV and play computer games all day? -Firebird.The UK government suggested that we home educate our children to cover up our abuse.On that issue, would you like some statistics?

'The Department [for Children, Schools and Families] is aware that attempts are being made on the Internet to vilify and harass the author of the review. It is the Department's view that, whilst dealing with each request on its merits, this situation will have to be taken into account in dealing with any relevant FOI requests. ... we anticipate the need to consider whether it is in the public interest to release information likely to intensify any such campaign, or to lead to harassment or distress to individuals.'Hello DCSF. Vilify: to make vicious and defamatory statements about.Like putting it about that home educated children are abused by their parents? Isolated? Unsocialised? Denied an education?And the latest one, that their mothers have Munchhausen's Syndrome by Proxy, and benefit from their child's suffering.

... compulsory registration, entry to the home, inspection according to external standards, and power to see the child without the parent present.By implication this applies to anyone who has their child at home with them: particularly parents with under 5s, but also those with school-aged children who are at home in the evenings, over the weekends, and throughout the summer holidays. Think on: the possibility of parental inspection, with or without your presence, based on the very human whim of a local authority officer.Is that okay with you?Renegade Parent on the implications for all parents from the Badman review of home education.

'Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children'.(Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948, Article 26.3)

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